


Name this story how you want

by phrynne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Feelings, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 12:36:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12531532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrynne/pseuds/phrynne
Summary: A supermarket is the last place on earth you were expecting to find him. That’s probably why he’s there, to defeat all logical explanation, to make you face the serendipity of life.Or maybe he’s just there to buy detergent and the rest is just fiction.





	Name this story how you want

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elly_dk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elly_dk/gifts).



> Elly, you said you'd read me even if I wrote about them buying detergent. And this came up. I had plans for this morning, a ton of things I needed to be doing - instead, I wrote this for you as a gift - and to congratulate you on posting a story of your own too. This is... on the magic of writing, of connecting, of words and imagination. So many of it came from our talks. I hope you like it.

Some things you keep bottled up inside for so long, you forget they were even there in the first place. You walk around with their weight on your chest, and you get used to it. You think:

_This is normal. This is me._

This is how it goes.

One day. Maybe it’s Autumn. You’re the reader, just chose a season of your liking.

A supermarket is the last place on earth you were expecting to find him. That’s probably why he’s there, to defeat all logical explanation, to make you face the serendipity of life.

Or maybe he’s just there to buy detergent and the rest is just fiction.

As the reader, you can pick whichever version you like best.

You had such an idea in going there yourself - not the fiction, the buying of detergent, no one in their right mind would ever think something important might happen while shopping for groceries or any such thing - but then he’s there and the purpose of supermarkets is lost on you.

You don’t mean to stare, really, you don’t.

At this point, reader, you can imagine how he’s dressed. I personally like the idea of him dressed all in black, so for me he’d be standing before the shelves with rows of brightly colored detergents, like a spot of darkness in bright lights. That way, he looks more alone. Unapproachable and unattainable - all things he truly isn’t, as we all know.

You can also style his hair according to your preferences. It only matters that his hair is blond, as you know, and you must refer to that at some point in your text.

So for the purposes of this fiction, his hair is so blond, it’s almost white. And you remember the feel of it in your hands.

You don’t give free reign to your eyes, but they linger on his back, turned to you, wondering where he keeps the weight you feel.

Not on his chest, you think. You watch his shoulders, always very upright, proud, and you think you notice their minute tension. The way they’re trying to hold him up.

When he suddenly turns to you, you notice two things:

One, he still looks like a dream, and you hurt.

Two, there’s a little boy, his miniature replica, down to the bright grey eyes looking up at you, holding his hand.

You look from the boy, to him, to the bottle of laundry detergent he’s cradling in his other arm. None of it makes sense. The fact that he’s still looking at you, as if framed inside a muggle photograph, stops the time long enough for you to believe the weight is gone.

At this point, reader, you can imagine how he’s looking. How his grey eyes survey yours, wondering what the best reaction might be, wondering… but you could never read them, could you? We all know he’s turned the hiding of feelings into a mastery of his own.

We also know all the times that mask falls off. So chose how he looks now. Is the mask up? Is it crumbling at the edges? Faltering?

‘Potter.’

‘Malfoy.’

The names taste like an experiment of sorts. You haven’t said his in such a long time that the word feels awkward in your tongue. And then you want to say it over and over again and never stop. You want to pull the name apart -

Mal-

_remember how things taste when broken._

-Foy

_Tattered._

And then you want to put it back together. Whole. Malfoy. Malfoy.

But you don’t know how that feels. So you imagine it.

Do you, reader, know how it feels? Think for a moment how it feels. When was the last time you felt whole while holding someone close to you? When was the last time you felt whole and alone?

Hold that thought with you, you’re gonna need it in the end.

Back to them, detergent aisle, random supermarket.

He was gone out of your life before you both even felt comfortable in using other names. Draco. Baby. Sweetheart. Love. You tasted them all, tried them all after he was gone. You have a feeling he’d allow you _baby,_ before he’d allow Draco. You can almost feel it under your tongue, trying to get out. He’d let you, oh he would.

But there’s a third element in this story. And he’s there because he’s cute. But also, because he, inadvertently, tells us so many things about his dad, things we wouldn’t know otherwise.

He tells us Draco is a good father. He tells us Draco cares. Draco loves.

That’s what Harry sees now.

‘I’m Scorpius. Are you Harry Potter?’

It’s the boy. He’s smiling at you, and before you know you’re squatting down beside him and smiling back.

‘Yes, I am. It’s very nice to meet you, Scorpius.’

You’ve read about his divorce on the paper. Yours has been plastered to every wizarding publication possible, so he’d have to be a hermit not to have heard of it. It’s possible he is. It’s also possible he doesn’t care to know. But we don’t want to believe that, do we?

As for Harry, well, of course he believes this second option.

You thought of reaching out but the weight on your chest pressed you down and you couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. If you were going to speak to him, you had to know what to say and you didn’t.

We all know Harry is not the best at words.

And we love this because that means he _does_ , before he speaks or thinks.

He knows that too.

That’s why he’s being careful now. He doesn’t want to do anything rash.

At this point, reader, you can imagine the kinds of things Harry might be thinking. How he would get too close, too soon, and ask him out. Out of the blue. How he could mess it all up by saying the wrong thing. _Doing_ the wrong thing.

You are so intensely aware of his eyes on you, but you don’t look up. Scorpius looks happy to meet you. You also have a boy his age, and wish they would meet. You stand up again, getting reaquainted with the supermarket surrounding you. It feels too real. You watch as his hand softens Scorpius hair, and that’s when you can’t keep from remembering.

You're clearly remembering those hands on you. You know them. You know their touch on the inside of your thighs. _I want you._ You know them on your hips, pressing, nails biting into your flesh, on your face with a sort of desperation - _don’t go, don’t leave -_ on your back, clutching, _please, more_. You know them soft on your hair. You know them over your legs, unthinking, just there, a sense of belonging you could never ease away.

From there, we can go anywhere. Even inside a supermarket.

You have so many things to say to him, you say nothing at all.

You could only tell him with your lips pressed on his neck. With your hands on his wrists, pinning him down on the bed, or holding him up above you, your body meaningless beyond the points of contact with his. You never had any words to begin with.

But we know he - the one dressed in black - he holds some words.

They come out unexpectedly, no way to predict them.

And now reader, you can chose how this story begins.

I like to think Draco, having gone to hell and back, having done what was expected, having faced thousands of days alone, I like to think he’d dare.

‘I’ve missed you.’

Do you remember feeling whole? 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I love to read your comments. I've met such wonderful people here on AO3, just through comments. Thank you for reading and I hoped you enjoyed this drabble. Do you want to suggest any other tittle?


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